Legendary Ned Fenlon issues an invitation to all

July 24, 2003|BY FRED GRAY NEWS-REVIEW STAFF WRITER

Edward "Ned" Fenlon, the banjo-picking Irish-American native of Hessel who ran rum to Mackinac Island during Prohibition and rode the political tidal wave of the New Deal to a productive legislative and judicial career, is spending the summer celebrating his 100th birthday, which officially transpires in October.

A living textbook of 20th century Michigan lore, the Northland's most stalwart Democrat remains unapologetic for the Chris Craft cavorting of his Great Gatsby youth, when he used the wealth and power of others for his own pleasure and eventually for the benefit of his widespread and devout constituency.

Fenlon, wearing his trademark Mackinac Island Yacht Club commodore cap and exercise weights around his ankles, granted an interview at his Victorian home on Mitchell Street in Petoskey on Tuesday, where he is surrounded by the memorabilia of his life and that of his late wife, Jane, who died two years ago after 62 years of marriage.

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Meryl Hankey, Fenlon's full-time nurse who is writing his biography, was present during the interview and provided historical data and insights.

Fenlon said he considered his greatest accomplishment to be his largely unsung role in turning the concept of a bridge over the Straits of Mackinac into reality by writing the enabling legislation during his six years as state representative, 1933-1939, and two decades before the bridge was actually constructed.

He was a law partner of U.S. Sen. Prentiss Brown, considered the father of the Mackinac Bridge, and a close companion of Michigan's long-time Democratic Gov. G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams (1949-1960), who was in office when the bridge was completed in 1957.

Fenlon said he considered his second greatest achievement to be his success in having the State Police placed under Civil Service, thereby removing it from the political process and turmoil that resulted from continuously changing leadership.

In the early 1940s, after he returned to private law practice, Fenlon turned Williams down when he applied to join the law firm that Fenlon managed in Detroit and St. Ignace, believing that the firm should be fairly represented by Republicans and Democrats, and that Williams would have been one too many of the right persuasion.

In 1951, with no apparent animosity, Williams, now governor, appointed Fenlon as circuit judge for Emmet, Mackinac and Cheboygan and later Charlevoix counties, a position he held for 24 years.

The Grand Marshal of Petoskey's July 4 parade, Fenlon will be the guest of honor at the boat show in Hessel on Aug. 9 and the host of an open house birthday reception at North Central Michigan College, which he helped found, and to which he has invited the entire community.

Admitting to having been a Democrat all his life, most of it spent in solidly Republican territory, Fenlon attributed his political success to "being lucky."

He noted that he had been appointed to the Legislature in 1933 by a Democratic governor to fill a vacancy, and then successfully ran for office at a time when there were only three Democrats in the entire Legislature and "about three Democrats in all of Emmet County."

"It was the New Deal that made my election possible," he said. "We went from three Democrats in the Legislature to 54 in 1934 because of the New Deal."

Fenlon, noting that his Irish roots had much to do with his choice of political parties, accepted the observation that he might be thought of as "the Jack Kennedy of the Michigan North," considering that the former president, despite his wealth, was also a firm Democrat of Irish descent who considered himself a "man of the people."

Fenlon said he met Kennedy at the Pellston airport while the then-senator from Massachusetts was campaigning for the presidency. Asked if Kennedy said anything memorable to him at the time, Fenlon nodded slowly, smiled and responded with a twinkle: "Hello!"

Asked about his storied sympathy for those brought before him while he was judge, Fenlon said: "Some of them. It's so easy to get in trouble, by association. Get in the wrong crowd, you're stuck."

To make the point, Hankey recalled when groups of Native Americans would gather Sunday mornings at the basement steps of St. Francis Xavier Church in Petoskey.

"When the judge got out of church," she said, "he would take them all over to Dawn Donuts, where they'd talk Indian, and the Indians would say to him (referring to their day in court): 'You were good to me about it.'"

Fenlon learned the Odawa language while working as a youth for his mother in the family grocery store in Hessel, and has maintained a close relationship with Native Americans ever since, earning him the Indian name of "Tchi Ajigon" ("In order to build the bridge") and the designation of honorary Odawa.

"My mother was always good to the Indians," Fenlon said. "During the winter, she'd give them credit to hold them over through the winter. They never let her down; they always paid her back."